The two Swedish women who have brought sex charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange boasted about their relationship with him days before going to cops.

Based on information available on various websites quoting police and court papers, here's an account of what happened. The story goes back to August this year, when Assange was in Stockholm to speak at the invitation of Sweden's Social Democratic Party.

The event organizer was 31-year-old Anna Ardin, who has been described as a feminist, leftist, social democrat and opponent of abortion. She has worked at the Uppsala University, handling equality issues for the students' union. On Twitter, she has been called a "CIA agent" for "framing" Assange. (The net is abuzz with conspiracy theories on how Assange was framed.)

When Assange arrived in Stockholm, Ardin invited him to stay at her flat while she visited her family for a few days out in the country. Ardin returned home on August 13; she and Assange had sex that night. Both have admitted a condom was used and it broke. On August 20, Ardin would go to police alleging that Assange deliberately broke the condom during sex.

Ardin's co-accuser, 26-year-old Sofia Wilen, an aspiring photographer, had sex with Assange on the evening of August 16 and again the following morning. The first time, a condom was used; the second time, there was no condom. On August 20, Wilen would go to police alleging that Assange had refused to wear a condom.

After both sexual encounters, neither woman seemed to harbour any resentment against Assange. One of Assange's lawyers has been quoted as saying: "The exact content of Wilen's mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Neither Wilen's nor Ardin's texts complain of rape."

On August 14, the day following the night of "crime", Assange delivered a 90-minute speech about how war's first casualty is truth. Ardin was in attendance (as was Wilen) but showed no signs of the previous night's "trauma". At 2 o'clock that night, while hosting a party in Assange's honour at her flat, Ardin tweeted: "Sitting outside; nearly freezing; with the world's coolest people; it's pretty amazing."

After going to police on August 20, she deleted these tweets. After sex with Assange on the morning of August 17, Wilen went out, and bought, then cooked breakfast  oatmeal and juice.

On August 18, Wilen called up Ardin and told her that she had unprotected sex with Assange. She said she was upset he didn't use a condom and was afraid she might have contracted an STD or become pregnant. Ardin said she too had had sex with Assange. On August 20, both women filed charges against him.

And an obscure Swedish law was invoked. It is sometimes called the "surprise sex" law. In essence, it holds that if a woman withdraws her consent at any point during intercourse, and the man continues, it becomes rape. This transition from consensual to non-consensual sex is what Assange is accused of. The penalty is reported to be a fine of $715. But he has been arrested and now denied bail.

Ardin, one of the Assange's alleged victims, works in Sweden's Uppsala University and is known in some Cuban exile and dissident circles.

She visited Cuba about four times between 2002 and 2006 as a representative of Swedish social democrats, said Manuel Cuesta Morua, head of Cuba's Arco Progresista, a social-democratic dissident group.

She later wrongly alleged that some European funds for Cuban dissidents had been mishandled, Cuesta Morua said by telephone from Havana. She was said to have been born in Cuba, he added, but he never confirmed it with her.

Ardin has written for Asignaturas Cubanas, a Cuban exile magazine published in Sweden, and her 2007 master's thesis at Uppsala University was titled The Cuban multi-party system. Is the democratic alternative really democratic and an alternative after the Castro regime?

She could not be reached for comment, and Cuban exiles in Sweden who know her said she was keeping a low profile because of Assange's detention.

Two left-of-center websites also alleged that she was close to Cuban exile author Carlos Alberto Montaner and the Ladies in White, female relatives of Cuban political prisoners.

The websites portrayed Ardin's links to Cuba as evidence of a U.S.-backed plot to smear and jail Assange. One site said Montaner had links to the CIA.

Montaner told journalists that he did not recall ever meeting Ardin and dismissed the CIA allegation as Cuban propaganda. Ladies in White spokeswomen Berta Soler and Laura Pollán said they did not know Ardin.

Ardin's Cuba connections were first reported Sept. 14 by CounterPunch, a liberal newsletter co-edited by Alexander Cockburn, a steadfast critic of U.S. foreign policy.

The US does not need to make any sort of extraterritorial jurisdiction claim to drag Assange in for trial and punishment.

He commited espionage ~ (dealing in stolen classified documents wherever it happens is still espionage and it's really, really series AND hugh when the country is at war ~ which it is).

All we need is delivery of the body ~ and it doesn't matter how it arrives ~ PLUS, we can prosecute and punish all those who aided him ~ including MasterCard (and whoever owns that ~ maybe this could go down to the stockholders eh!).

People who think it's neat what Assange has done and want to be his friend probably ought to lay low for a good long while.

"And an obscure Swedish law was invoked. It is sometimes called the "surprise sex" law. In essence, it holds that if a woman withdraws her consent at any point during intercourse, and the man continues, it becomes rape. "

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